Many common ideas about the Donner
Party do not stand up to closer examination, several false stories have
circulated, and there are still many unanswered questions. These pages
present articles addressing some of these
issues. (Use your browser's <Back> key to return
here.)

In Winter of Entrapment
Joseph A. King contended that the Miller-Reed diary is a
fake, but no other historian has endorsed
this claim. See Donner Party
Bulletin No. 5 for discussion.

The family of Franklin Ward
Graves joined the Donner Party some
time in August 1846. Dale L. Morgan, in his
seminal West from Fort Bridger, proposed the
generally accepted date for this event, but other sources
apparently unknown to Morgan suggest an
alternative. Crossroads,
Spring/Summer 1996 - Vol. 7, No 2 & 3

Louis Keseberg was the Donner
Party's most infamous member. In Ordeal by Hunger,
the most influential history of the Donner Party, George
R. Stewart wrote of Keseberg's theft of a
buffalo robe from the body of a Sioux warrior laid to
rest on a burial scaffold. Stewart's source, however, is
questionable. Crossroads,
Spring/Summer 1996 - Vol. 7, No 2 & 3